


Safe from pain and truth and choice and other poison devils

by Neyiea



Series: Burn everything you love/Then burn the ashes [3]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: ALSO very minor character death, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Bruce is plotting murder and Jeremiah is besotted, Exactly what you probably expect of this AU, Kind of weird pillow talk but who's surprised about that?, M/M, Oral Sex, Rimming, Shameless Smut, Switch Bruce, Switch Jeremiah, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-08-12 22:33:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20128903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neyiea/pseuds/Neyiea
Summary: Excerpts post 'I'm gonna show you where it's dark, but have no fear.'Chapter 1 - The night before Bruce and Jeremiah return to Gotham.Chapter 2 - Bruce and Jeremiah learn Secretary Walker's true name, and Bruce says 'I love you' for the first time.Chapter 3 - Jeremiah finds out that he is not the first person to help Bruce build a bomb. His feelings of jealousy are quickly replaced by much more satisfying emotions.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have only one explanation for this, which is that I wanted to write smutty Wayleska without having to lay the groundwork for it, and I remembered that I have this handy little AU which I re-read and still actually like. So. Have more?  
Might write more than the planned two chapters depending on my level of motivation, which waxes and wanes like I am under the thrall of the moon or something, _hhhhhh_.  
Cheers!  
xoxoxo
> 
> Don't fret precious, I'm here  
Step away from the window, go back to sleep  
Safe from pain and truth and choice and other poison devils  
See, they don't give a fuck about you like I do
> 
> Counting Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War Drums by A Perfect Circle

They’ve been cut off from Gotham’s heart for so long with only Ecco’s reports keeping them tied to the city. Bruce has gotten used to the sound of her crackling voice, used to talking to her over the radio when Jeremiah was otherwise occupied, used to working with Jeremiah all over again. He’s even grown used to those same fluttery feelings that he’d had months ago being drawn forth when Jeremiah showed off his particular brand of innovative brilliance, even if his plans were tinged with madness nowadays. 

And he’s become incredibly familiar with all that Jeremiah desires when they aren’t working in tandem. He’s even begun to crave it, now. Jeremiah’s almost overwhelming affection and lust and adoration wake up something inside of him. He always has a way of making Bruce feel like he is the centre of Jeremiah’s universe. The only thing that really mattered. Bruce has begun to relish the feeling of it, of being so important to someone. 

And tomorrow night, at long last, they’ll be slipping back into Gotham.

Where they belong.

When Jeremiah had told him the news Bruce had been too elated to control himself. He’d held Jeremiah’s face in his hands and kissed him in the repurposed study of a stranger’s house, and Jeremiah had reacted with all of his usual passion. It wasn’t long before the kisses became more, and their shirts were stripped away, and Jeremiah was retracing old bruises with his mouth while Bruce’s hands had dug into his hair. 

It only makes sense to celebrate their impending homecoming, as well as the things that they’ll accomplish when they get there. Bruce shudders at the thought of it.

He’s been so angry for so long, even before Jeremiah had revealed his true nature he’d held so much rage inside. He thinks it will feel good to let that anger run loose, to stop fighting for control, to let the dams open.

They’re going to destroy Secretary Walker, they’re going to ruin the unit that she’d sent into the city, they’re going to show the mainland exactly what should happen when people outside of Gotham decide to work against Gotham.

And they’re going to do all of it together.

Bruce’s hands urgently pull open Jeremiah’s belt.

They’re strongest when they’re together. Destructive. Invincible. They’re going to shake the very foundations of the earth. While united for this crucial objective there isn’t a force that exists that can tear them asunder. They are partners with a shared goal, too focused and in sync to let anything stand in their way.

Jeremiah has called them soulmates on more than one occasion.

Bruce is beginning to think that he might be right. There’s a link between them, growing stronger with every moment they spend together. When all is said and done; when every vile, corrupt official on the mainland is fully aware of what will happen to them if they ever attempted to hurt Gotham or her people again, Bruce knows that Jeremiah will have more plans to try and enact on their city.

But Bruce will stop him.

It will become their own special little game. He loves Gotham far too much to give Jeremiah free reign. But he’s too deeply connected to Jeremiah to stop him the way they’re going to stop Walker, or anyone like her.

Their lovers’ quarrels really will be a sight to behold, but it’s what will happen in private afterwards that will truly set them apart.

Bruce wraps a hand around Jeremiah’s cock and Jeremiah’s nails dig into his back hard enough to break skin as their kiss deepens. He always marks Bruce up so thoroughly, never letting bruises fade or cuts heal fully before adding new ones onto Bruce’s flesh. He’s possessive and gruesome, and Bruce is almost certain that Jeremiah has seriously considered carving his name into Bruce’s skin deep enough to scar just to be sure that Bruce would always remember him.

As if Bruce could ever forget him.

Bruce’s hand trails lower, back, and his fingers press against Jeremiah just hard enough that he breaks the kiss with a sharp intake of breath.

“Can I?”

“Of course, darling,” Jeremiah tells him, pupils blown, legs splaying open wider. “Of course.”

This isn’t the first time they’ve gone so far in the study, though usually it’s Jeremiah who initiates. He takes Bruce apart while whispering to him about how much he wanted to do this before, in his bunker, while he was still masquerading as something he no longer was.

Half in love at their first meeting.

Fully in love by the time Bruce began working with him.

Dangerously, obsessively, incredibly in love for so long without realizing that Bruce’s feelings were steadily growing from friendship into something more. He tells Bruce that he loves him every day and Bruce hasn’t said it back, but he can’t ignore the way his emotions are shifting around, retracing the path that they’d taken what feels like so long ago.

Weeks ago Bruce had told Jeremiah that he could have loved him, that he almost loved him.

He’s on the precipice of that again, he can feel it blooming beneath the surface. It’s not as sweet and innocent as it was before, but the additional darkness suits them better. 

Bruce quickly digs through the drawer for one of the bottles of oil that Jeremiah has left around the house, because he could hardly keep his hands to himself and was the sort who had to be prepared for anything. 

“Take everything off, Miah.” Bruce presses a quick, laughably chaste kiss to his lips. “I want to see you.”

Jeremiah’s eyelashes flutter, and he quickly goes about stripping himself free of anything that’s been left. Even now that Bruce has grown accustomed to the sight of him—the Jeremiah with red hair and hazel eyes a persistent but faded memory—he seems otherworldly, like he’s something inhuman masquerading as a man. A monster.

But he’s Bruce’s monster. Just as Bruce is his.

Bruce slicks his fingers with oil and settles on his knees before him. He can see Jeremiah’s knuckles go even more starkly-white as he grips the edge of the desk tighter, and Bruce presses a kiss to his thigh as he lifts his dry hand up to coax Jeremiah’s fingers loose, then draw his hand down to where Bruce knows he wants to hold.

Jeremiah’s fingers twist into his curls, not tight enough to hurt, at least not until Bruce licks a stripe up the underside of his cock.

The sting makes him feel even hotter. 

“Tell me how much you want me,” Bruce asks, because he’s found that nothing makes him feel quite as good as the intensity of all that Jeremiah feels for him. He circles his slick fingers lazily without pushing in, and his lips just barely skim the head of Jeremiah’s cock as he speaks. Jeremiah’s hips twitch, and his fingers dig harder in Bruce’s hair. “Please, Miah?”

“Darling boy, as if I could refuse such a request,” Jeremiah rasps, “even though you already know how much I want you. How everything I have done has been for you.”

Bruce hums as he presses the first finger in. The knowledge of the lengths Jeremiah had gone for him, and would continue to go for him, don’t feel as distressing as they used to.

The earlier imbalance between them is settled, now. Bruce isn’t defenceless in the face of Jeremiah’s plans and manipulations as he had once been. They’re partners, and Bruce holds more power than anyone could have possibly expected of him.

He is the only force on this earth capable of keeping Jeremiah in check.

He is the only person that Jeremiah considers an equal in all things.

He is the only one who can stand between Jeremiah and Gotham and ensure that he doesn’t actually tear the entire place down in an effort to rebuild what doesn’t need to be completely remade. There are some things that need to change—Bruce will happily admit it just as he will happily work with Jeremiah to make those changes come about—but certain foundations should be kept unaltered and Bruce would make sure they were protected. The rest of the world wasn’t so lucky to have his loyalty or heart. Gotham was all that mattered, now, and if Jeremiah occasionally made his fun by terrorizing other cities Bruce doesn’t think he could be bothered to try and stop him.

Though, really, that probably would make Jeremiah avoid anywhere that wasn’t Gotham.

Some things—or rather, most things—simply didn’t matter to him unless Bruce was directly involved. 

“I want us to be so tightly tied together that nothing can ever tear us apart,” Jeremiah tells him lowly. “I want to be connected to you in all ways that matter, I want—” His breath hitches as Bruce’s mouth falls open while his finger crooks inside of him. “—Everything. Because you are my everything, Bruce.” His hands pull at Bruce’s hair, and the slick slit of his dick brushes against Bruce’s parted lips. “Nothing truly matters without you. I’d gladly burn the world down around us if you asked it of me.”

Bruce thinks of the fire that had consumed Wayne Manor in the wake of the explosion that he had set off. Thinks of the way the flames had reflected eerily and beautifully in Jeremiah’s eyes. Thinks of what it could be like to go after everyone who’d turned their backs on Gotham and make them pay for what they’d done, and not done. 

But that would take them away from home for too long. Bruce misses his Dark Island. 

“We’ll burn Walker and her legion, first,” Bruce offers, and Jeremiah shudders.

He did so love the idea of Bruce getting his hands dirty. Loved the idea of him giving in to the dark side that Jeremiah had faithfully been nurturing. 

“Yes,” he agrees. “You and I, together.”

How we’re meant to be, Bruce thinks as he takes Jeremiah into his mouth while pressing in a second finger. 

Jeremiah jolts, and Bruce curves his fingers as he takes him in deeper.

Salt and musk and the familiar feeling of Jeremiah filling him up, it sparks something inside of Bruce, makes him want more. He presses the palm of his free hand against himself and draws his fingers in and out while relaxing his throat. He takes shallow breaths through his nose as Jeremiah’s hand begins to gently guide him. 

“Such a good boy,” Jeremiah praises, and Bruce twitches against his own hand. “So perfect in every conceivable way. Your hands, your mouth, your mind.” Jeremiah tugs on Bruce’s hair, and Bruce’s eye flutter half-shut as he follows the movement. “We were made for each other, you and I.”

Bruce hums in agreement, causing Jeremiah to lurch at the sensation, and adds a third finger. It’s quick, bordering on too quick, but that’s the way Jeremiah likes it. Bruce used to be warier of causing him any discomfort, he’d wanted to take his time and be careful, but Jeremiah always seemed to want to go faster when Bruce was the one doing the fucking. He’d urge Bruce on, telling him all the filthy things he’d fantasied about, until Bruce gave him exactly what he wanted.

‘I like to feel you the day afterwards, darling,’ Jeremiah had told him early on. ‘Is that really such a surprise?’

It wasn’t.

Bruce pulls away and digs his teeth into Jeremiah’s thigh. Jeremiah throws his head back, clenching around Bruce’s fingers.

“Bruce,” he hisses from between his teeth. Bruce loves hearing him unravel. Loves when he so obviously turns to putty in Bruce’s hands. “I’m ready, darling, I’m ready.”

“Are you?” Bruce’s voice is scratchy and raw, and Jeremiah shivers as his fingers twist. “You know how I like being certain.”

“Don’t be a tease, my dear. I deserve to get what I want, don’t I?” Jeremiah’s eyes flit open, hazy. His cheeks are flushed, and Bruce basks at the sight of him. “After all that I have done for you? I’m bringing us home tomorrow, Bruce. I’m giving you exactly what you want, what you need, I—” He cuts himself off as Bruce removes his fingers, and he digs his hands into Bruce’s shoulders and drags him up to his feet, eagerly bringing their lips together.

He kisses deeply while his hands settle between them to unbutton and unzip Bruce’s pants. One of his calloused hands slips inside, and Jeremiah makes a soft, pleased noise into the kiss when Bruce grinds against his palm. 

“How do you want me, darling,” Jeremiah breathes against his mouth, “tell me.”

Last time Bruce had trailed kisses up and down Jeremiah’s broad back and had marvelled at the way that the intimacy of the gesture seemed to do more to help Jeremiah break apart underneath him than the way Bruce’s hand had curled around his cock. He wants to try something new, this time. 

“I want you on top of me. I want to be able to see your face, Miah.”

Jeremiah lets out a soft laugh, and he twists them around so that Bruce is pinned against the desk before he urgently begins tugging all that is left of Bruce’s clothing down his legs.

Bruce has a brief flash of odd, somewhat embarrassed gratefulness that the oak desk in the study is solidly built as Jeremiah’s hands grip tightly at Bruce’s waist, lifting him up and pushing him back. 

Bruce still feels a little faint when Jeremiah moves him around so easily, and he’s not sure the feeling will ever fully fade. Jeremiah is older; he’s had the time to become taller and broader and more defined. In a fight they were well-matched despite their current differences in build because Bruce has had more training, and is faster, and is very aware of his body’s abilities and how to use them to his advantage. Maybe in a few years Bruce will grow to be as tall, or taller, but there are still times—like when Jeremiah is able to fully envelop him, or pin him down, or lift him up—when Bruce feels small next to him.

Jeremiah lifts himself onto the desk, settling astride Bruce’s lap with a self-satisfied smirk. The rosy hue of his cheeks makes his eyes seem brighter, and Bruce can’t resist taking Jeremiah’s face into his hands and drawing him into another kiss. Jeremiah follows along willingly, of course, but he also lifts himself up on his knees, and grabs onto Bruce’s cock, and guides the head to his slick opening.

“I love you,” he says as they break apart, and then he begins to sink down.

He’s tight and hot. His eyelashes flutter and his mouth falls open as he steadily drops down, inch by inch, until he’s fully seated.

Bruce’s toes curl even before Jeremiah has a chance to start moving. His breathing turns quick and shallow, and he unsteadily rolls his hips upwards. Jeremiah shifts overtop of him to follow the movement, and when his weight settles again more firmly against Bruce’s pelvis Bruce rocks against him harder. It would be easier to move if Bruce had more leverage, but he’s not too bothered by the realization. 

It’s just something to remember for the next time. 

“Oh,” Jeremiah sighs, leaning forward to bite a new mark onto Bruce’s neck as he winds his arms around Bruce’s shoulders. The sting is enough to make his eyes water. “You feel so good inside of me.”

Bruce shudders at the reverence in his tone and Jeremiah leans back, lazily drawing his tongue over the trace amount of blood left behind on his lips.

“Touch me Bruce.” He lifts himself up and forward on his knees. “Anywhere. Everywhere. Just touch me.”

Bruce lays one hand against his hip, and the other slips into Jeremiah’s dark hair. He grips onto the short strands and pulls his head back, extending his neck, and Bruce leans in to lightly scratch his teeth against the tender skin there. Jeremiah’s breath hitches, and he starts moving faster.

“Please, Bruce,” he pants. “Mark me up, darling. It’s only fair. I want—I want you to.”

“I know you do,” Bruce tells him, not as collected as he’d like. It’s impossible to stay composed like this, when Jeremiah is eagerly taking charge to fuck himself back on Bruce’s cock. His breath catches in his throat when Jeremiah’s knees clamp hard on either side of his hips and he begins to move faster. He was going to say something about patience, about Jeremiah not always getting what he wants right away, but the words flutter out of his head as Jeremiah’s nails begin to scratch new lines against his shoulder blades. 

“I know,” he repeats, but instead of digging his teeth into flesh he draws his hand away from Jeremiah’s hip to drag it slowly up his side, then across his chest, then down his sternum. He trails his own blunt nails against Jeremiah’s abdomen, too light to leave a mark, and eventually his palm settles against the wet head of Jeremiah’s dick.

Jeremiah grinds against his hand, and Bruce pulls on his hair harder just to watch his expression shift. His red mouth opens in a soft gasp, and his eyes roll back before falling shut. 

He’s beautiful.

“Bite me. Choke me. Do something, darling boy,” Jeremiah moans as his movements become jerky and rough. “I want the bruises to last for days. I want us to arrive home and for everyone who sees us to _know_ what we are to each other.” His eyes drift half-open, irises a barely-visible ring around his dilated pupils as he turns his head to press a kiss to the inside of Bruce’s forearm. “I want to show off the marks you’ve left on me. Please.”

Bruce can’t resist giving him what he wants for much longer, not when Jeremiah asks so nicely. 

There’s something alluring about the thought of it, of Jeremiah proudly showing off whatever imprint Bruce left upon him. And he no doubt wants the same from Bruce. For someone as possessive as Jeremiah there would be no greater pleasure than letting everyone know that Bruce had been claimed. Bruises and teeth imprints and scratches and smeared lipstick all left behind in an obvious ploy to mark his territory, and before any of it had a chance to fade he’d leave behind even more visible traces of his amorous touch. 

Bruce wouldn’t be shocked if he got handsy in public, eager to show off just how tied together he and Bruce had become.

Bruce bites his lip to stifle what would have no-doubt been an embarrassing noise at the thought. Jeremiah is too far-gone to notice. 

Bruce curls his fingers around him and presses tender kisses to the stretch of Jeremiah’s neck, mind buzzing as Jeremiah begins to murmur his name under his breath like a prayer. Bruce cants his hips, and the heat inside of him rises to a boiling point, and when he feels himself teetering on the edge of release he finally presses his teeth into the crook of Jeremiah’s neck and bites down.

He feels the warm, wet rush of Jeremiah against his palm at the same time the metallic taste of blood coats his tongue, and Bruce’s curls forward, pressing his face into the sore mark that he’d left as he comes.

Jeremiah turns his head to press kisses to Bruce’s ear and into his curls, and anywhere else that his lips can reach.

“Thank you, dear heart,” he sighs adoringly. “I love you.”

Bruce’s heart flutters pleasantly in his chest, and his cheeks go even warmer. 

He leans back and draws Jeremiah into another kiss.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello yes it is I once again. I had... Too much fun with this <s>which you can probably tell, ffffff, please don't judge me too hard</s>

Ecco really has proven herself to be an irreplaceable assistant. She’d been looking into Secretary Walker ever since Wayne Manor had gone up in flames and after digging in to what little she could find she’d been able to prove that Walker had hidden herself away somewhere in Gotham. Ecco had told them how she had allegedly gone to Doctor Strange for something before disappearing without a trace. Bruce shouldn’t be surprised that he had somehow gotten involved; he’d been at the center of so many dreadful incidents and had survived each one like a cockroach. 

Upon Bruce and Jeremiah’s return home she’d told them where they could find the good Doctor, and Jeremiah had needed to coax Bruce into getting some rest after their journey instead of storming off immediately.

It’s a good thing that they waited, and that Bruce was able to approach this situation with a level head.

He wouldn’t have had all of the patience needed to ask their questions, otherwise, and the Doctor had so many interesting answers.

One of the men in Walker’s unit has been elevated into something more, much like those who had once been housed in Indian Hill, and Doctor Strange had been so quick to start spilling what made this man tick when Jeremiah had held a knife against his throat.

But the most important secret that the Doctor had shared, before Jeremiah had finally drawn his blade against Strange’s neck and let him bleed out, was information that even he likely should not have known. 

He always did come off as the sort who got too involved, who knew too many secrets for his own good.

It would have gotten him killed sooner or later.

And Hugo Strange had done enough to Gotham that Bruce had felt apathetic about his death being sooner.

Secretary Walker—who the government seemed to have no record of, who Ecco could find almost no trace of, who had done things to Gotham that Bruce would never forgive and never forget—was not the true name of the person who Bruce wanted to break apart with his bare hands.

“There really is no such thing as coincidence,” Jeremiah says nonchalantly, wiping his knife on the Doctor’s coat before tucking it away. “What do you suppose the relation is; wife? Daughter?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Bruce says, eyes locked on the crimson puddle growing on the floor. “I killed Ra’s. Twice.” And perhaps it was easier than it could have been because it was what Ra’s had wanted, but Bruce has come a long way since then, and he’s not alone anymore, and he’s ready to let the darkness and anger that roil inside of him out. “With you and I working together she won’t stand a chance.”

Jeremiah steps into his line of vision and Bruce looks up at him. His eyes are fever-bright, and there are red splotches of blood on his face from the spray of the jugular being slit, and Bruce knows that, with Jeremiah beside him, he is capable of things he never would have been before. 

Bruce feels his lips curl into a small smile that Jeremiah returns wholeheartedly, and his heart flutters in his chest, and he thinks,

I love him.

And he feels his cheeks go hot.

He’d known it was coming, he’d known that once he began to feel anything for Jeremiah again that this would be the end point. He’d known that he wouldn’t be able to ignore the connection between them, or the way that Jeremiah made him feel. 

Powerful. Unstoppable. Loved and adored and revered. 

He takes Jeremiah’s hands in his own, casting his gaze down as he presses a kiss to both sets of gloved knuckles.

“Dear heart,” Jeremiah coos, stepping closer as his fingers teasingly curl around Bruce’s. “You’re so flushed. What could you possibly be thinking about?”

“Just about us,” Bruce tells him, which is close enough to the truth.

“Oh? Is there anything you’d like to share?” Jeremiah’s smile takes on sharp edge and his eyes glint with unconcealed interest.

“Later,” Bruce promises. “You may want to wipe your face before the blood dries.”

“I was going to get around to that, eventually.” Jeremiah lets go of Bruce to pull out his handkerchief and he brings the folded fabric up to his face.

It’s reminiscent of a scene in a graveyard from what feels like so long ago, except this time Jeremiah is only wiping away the blood while his skin underneath remains unchanged. 

He has nothing to hide from Bruce, nowadays. 

“Better?”

“Much.” Bruce presses a quick kiss to Jeremiah’s smiling mouth. “Let’s go back. We have a lot to prepare for.”

“Such an admirable work ethic, darling,” Jeremiah says, turning to walk beside Bruce as they leave Hugo Strange’s body and workplace behind them. His hand settles possessively on the curve of Bruce’s lower back, and he leans in close to Bruce’s ear to whisper, “it’s one of the many things I love about you.”

“Jeremiah, you love everything about me.”

And wasn’t it something wonderful, to be loved by someone so completely?

“True,” he concedes with ease, and Bruce shifts to be closer to him.

They return to the secure location that Ecco had faithfully equipped for them, and they take out maps of Gotham and start putting Strange’s information to work. The gang territories are well established by now and there are not very many places that someone could hide away in for so long without being detected. There are only a handful of city blocks, really.

Bruce is so close to his goal—to their goal—that he can taste it.

He wonders if Ra’s had seen this too, had seen the way that Bruce was going to soak his hands in the blood of his family.

Ra’s had forced Bruce into killing him the first time by threatening a family that didn’t even exist. Now that someone close to Ra’s was in Gotham, perhaps trying to get revenge on Bruce for doing exactly what Ra’s had wanted of him by bringing his city into further ruin, Bruce was going to kill her.

Retribution will be sweet, and Bruce thinks it will feel like something akin to justice.

“That’s enough for tonight, darling. We’ll both need our rest for tomorrow.” Jeremiah tucks a lock of hair behind Bruce’s ear, and presses a kiss to his temple. 

“Jeremiah.” Bruce feels his smile return at the affectionate gesture, and it’s the easiest thing in the world for him to turn towards Jeremiah and say, “I love you.”

Jeremiah freezes for all of three seconds—eyes wide and lips parted as if in shock—then the surprise on his face is washed away by an intense, heated look that makes Bruce’s heart beat harder in his chest.

Jeremiah’s hands come up to cup his face and he looms in close, eyes roving over Bruce’s expression; greedy and urgent and full of hunger.

“Say it again, darling,” his voice is a plea as much as it is a demand. “Say it again.”

“I love you Jeremiah.”

Jeremiah kisses him like Bruce is about to be ripped right out of his hands, like he thinks this is some sort of dream and he’s about to wake up, like he wants everything from Bruce all at once. It’s almost too much to handle. It would be overwhelming if Bruce wasn’t already becoming used to Jeremiah’s excessive, extreme displays of affection. 

Bruce wraps his arms around Jeremiah’s shoulders and gives in to the tide.

The kiss is hot and wet, with something desperate laced in. It’s as if Jeremiah thinks that after getting this, the thing that he’s wanted for so long, Bruce is going to suddenly change his mind about what he feels. His grip becomes bruising, his teeth scrape against Bruce’s lips hard enough to make them swell, he presses Bruce up against the nearest wall and pins him as if he expects Bruce might try to escape.

Bruce locks one leg around Jeremiah’s hip and happily accepts every painful and pleasurable action that Jeremiah bestows upon him, and when Jeremiah starts grinding against him, already hard, already ravenous, Bruce rocks his hips and opens his mouth to Jeremiah’s insatiable tongue.

Jeremiah moans into the deepening kiss, and one of his hands comes to rest on Bruce’s knee to splay his leg open wider.

“So perfect,” he murmurs as he breaks away to press his teeth into the mark he’d left on Bruce’s neck only two days ago. “Clever and lovely and all mine. Tell me that you’re mine, Bruce,” his tone is urgent, bordering on unhinged.

Jeremiah loves Bruce so much. Loves him more than anything. Is smitten and devoted in a way that makes Bruce’s blood run hot, even if in the back of his mind he knows this level of obsession is unhealthy. 

“I’m yours, Jeremiah, just like you’re mine.”

“Yes,” he hisses, biting harder, tearing through Bruce’s skin and laving his tongue against the bleeding wound he’d left behind. “And no one could ever tear us apart, could they? You wouldn’t stand for being taken away from my side, just like I would never let anything tear me apart from you.”

“Never,” Bruce vows. “Nothing could steal me away.”

Jeremiah’s breath hitches and he kisses Bruce again, rolling his hips in unsteady, jerking motions as Bruce kisses back.

“I want everyone to know that we belong to each other. I want them to know that that they don’t even deserve to look at your face. Everyone in Gotham should throw themselves at your feet like the Prince that you are; only I deserve to stand beside you.” Jeremiah’s hand trails along the inside of Bruce’s thigh, and his fingers slip to Bruce’s perineum and press up hard enough through the fabric of his pants that Bruce jolts.

“They’ll know that we do,” Bruce promises, “of course they’ll know, Miah. It’s obvious.”

“I love you so much, Bruce, it’s almost enough to make me ache. Tell me that you love me again.” Jeremiah’s hands undo Bruce’s belt, and he drops down to his knees. “Don’t ever stop telling me. I promise I’ll never get sick of it, Bruce, darling boy.” He pulls Bruce’s pants and underwear halfway down his thighs. “_Say it_.”

“I love you,” he says, and the back of his head smacks against the wall when Jeremiah takes him into his mouth. “Love you, Miah.”

Jeremiah sighs happily, and his tongue slides around the head of Bruce’s cock in the exact way that he knows drives Bruce crazy. His hands dig into the flesh of Bruce’s hips, firmly keeping him pressed against the wall as he takes Bruce deeper. The wet, sloppy sound of it alone would be enough to make Bruce flush, but Jeremiah keeps making soft, pleased noises in the back of his throat like he can’t get enough, and hums around Bruce purposefully, and Bruce feels his toes start to curl far earlier than he’d like.

“Miah.” He twists a hand into Jeremiah’s hair, gently trying to push him back. “I’m close. If you don’t slow down this’ll be over soon.”

Jeremiah’s eyes flit half-open, pupils blown, and his mouth slides further down, and Bruce feels the muscles in his abdomen tense as he fights the urge to thrust the rest of the way in. But Jeremiah has his own ideas and taking Bruce’s cock until it’s pressing into his throat, his nose brushing against the skin of Bruce’s pelvis, is apparently one of them. 

It’s too good, too much, and Bruce definitely won’t be able to hang on to the edge much longer if Jeremiah keeps this up. 

“Miah, Miah, I need you to—” he stumbles over his wording, but decides to go with, “make love to me,” instead of ‘fuck me’, because Jeremiah is a sappy romantic and Bruce has no problems with using that knowledge to his advantage to get what he wants. “Please, Jeremiah, I want to come with you inside of me.”

Jeremiah pulls back and his hands drop away, and for a moment Bruce thinks that he’s going to give in to his pleading. 

Then he watches Jeremiah peel the glove off of one hand before bringing it up to his red lips.

“You can come more than once, Bruce.” He slides two fingers into his mouth, sucking on them in a performative, obscene way that Bruce is weak against. They leave his mouth with a wet pop and he reaches up between Bruce’s legs. “Don’t worry, I’ll give you exactly what you want. Eventually.”

His slick fingers circle around Bruce’s hole in an almost teasing way, then glide across without pressing in, and Bruce finds himself spreading his legs open wider.

“_Miah_.”

“Say it again, Bruce.”

“I love you.”

Jeremiah takes Bruce’s cock back into his mouth as his fingers thrust inside. The stretch feels good, and his mouth feels good, and Jeremiah is looking up at Bruce like he’d be thrilled to be on his knees for however long Bruce wanted him there, and Jeremiah’s other hand is moving quickly against his own cock. He thrusts against his own palm eagerly, like he’s at the edge already just from Bruce talking as he goes down on him. It’s enough to make him feverish, and Bruce can feel his toes start to curl again as the pleasure quickly builds up.

“Love you, love you, love you,” Bruce murmurs, watching avidly as Jeremiah presses his hand firmly down and squirms against it. “Wish I could be doing that for you, Miah. I’d—I’d let you grind yourself against my leg until you came. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Jeremiah moans and shakes, eyelashes fluttering and mouth briefly going slack. His hand goes still for a few moments before he recovers and then his fingers crook and drag inside of Bruce, and after a few attempts he finally pushes firmly against Bruce’s prostate. Bruce jerks, mouth falling open in a wordless cry, and Jeremiah makes a pleased noise before he presses against it a second time, fingers rubbing in tireless circles until Bruce is coming undone, hands digging into Jeremiah’s hair as he spills in his mouth. He can feel Jeremiah swallow around him, and his hands dig in harder as it become a shade too much. 

Jeremiah pulls back before Bruce is too frazzled from overstimulation and he rests his cheek against Bruce’s thigh, pressing a tender kiss to the skin there before biting hard enough to leave a bruise.

“I want to leave marks on you everywhere,” he rasps, a hungry glint still in his eyes. “Even the places where no one but you and I will ever see.”

“You can,” Bruce tells him breathlessly. “You know I’d let you. With your nails, with your teeth, with your knife, with whatever you want. And I’ll mark you up just the same, darling.”

“Such lovely things you promise me,” Jeremiah coos, eyes flashing as he rises to his feet. “My perfect match, my soulmate, the love of my life.” His hands rest against the wall on either side of Bruce’s head, and he leans in for a brief kiss. “I don’t know if there are words to truly describe the depths of what you make me feel.” His hands trail down Bruce’s chest, skim past his hips, and settle on the backs of his thighs. Bruce lifts his feet off the ground without prompting, wrapping his arms tightly around Jeremiah’s broad shoulders, and Jeremiah holds him close. “So I suppose I’ll have to show you, my love, by giving you exactly what you asked for.”

Bruce smiles against Jeremiah’s neck.

“Let’s take this to our bedroom, shall we?”

“Yes, please.”

Jeremiah laughs, and Bruce skims his teeth across Jeremiah’s neck just to hear his breath catch in his throat. 

“Tease,” Jeremiah admonishes, though his tone holds no heat, as he leaves their workspace behind.

“You deserve some teasing occasionally. Besides.” Bruce bites down, and he delights in the way Jeremiah’s entire body shudders. “You know I always follow through.”

“You are so very good to me, Bruce.” Jeremiah sets him down on the bed, then starts stripping out of his clothes. “And I’ll be just as good to you.”

Bruce slides out of his pants and kicks off his socks.

Jeremiah is on him before either of them are fully stripped, and they slowly discard whatever is left of the other’s clothing as Jeremiah initiates long, leisurely kisses. His almost frantic desire from before seems to have settled, for now at least, and he reaches behind Bruce’s head for something hidden away beneath their pillows.

The snap of a cap being opened is almost funny, but it’s also somewhat mortifying because it was definitely Ecco that found lube, left it there for them in the bedroom, and told Jeremiah where she’d stashed it. 

“Oh, I love when you get all flushed for me. Thinking of anything interesting?”

“Just that your assistant seems to know about our sex life.”

“I did tell her that we were honeymooning when we were away, Bruce. I’m sure it was quite easy for her to put two and two together.” Jeremiah smirks, fingers grazing Bruce’s sides. “Turn over, sweetheart, I’m going to take such good care of you.”

Bruce shudders, blood starting to rush all over again as he flips himself onto his knees, bracing his forearms against the pillows and arcing his spine.

“Gorgeous,” Jeremiah murmurs, his hands settling on Bruce’s hips, thumbs digging into his flesh and parting his cheeks in a way that makes Bruce feel like he’s been thoroughly laid bare.

Then his tongue drags up the cleft of his ass and Bruce has to bite his lip to keep from embarrassing himself by shrieking. Jeremiah does it again, more firmly the second time, and Bruce spreads his knees further apart. The third time he does it his tongue presses right up against the opening without pressing inside, and Bruce can’t stop the whine that rises up in his throat. Jeremiah laughs under his breath and does it again, maddeningly slow.

“Bruce,” Jeremiah sighs, his breath cooling the trail of saliva he’d left behind and making Bruce shudder. “I love you so. Tell me what I want to hear, darling.”

“I love you, Jeremiah.” Bruce arcs his back more, and he casts a glance over his shoulder. “Please, please do something.”

“As you wish.”

Jeremiah’s lips skim against him, leaving a trail of kisses from his perineum to his lower back, and Bruce shifts his weight restlessly. Then Jeremiah’s tongue is pressing against him again, and the tip just barely begins to slide inside, and all the air leaves his lungs in a rush. One of Jeremiah’s thumbs hooks into him, opening Bruce up completely as Jeremiah’s tongue pushes in alongside it, and Bruce feels his cock start to harden.

Jeremiah’s other hand trails down to Bruce’s thigh. Bruce finds himself reaching back to keep himself spread and Jeremiah makes a lewd, satisfied noise as he presses deeper.

“Fuck, Miah.” Bruce buries his face into pillows in front of him. It’s wetter and slicker than Jeremiah’s fingers or cock, and it’s almost embarrassing how good it feels. He shifts back, unable to keep still, and he can feel Jeremiah’s teeth grazing along his heated skin. “Fuck, do—do you like this?”

Jeremiah pulls away, chuckling. “Oh Bruce, what a question.” He digs his teeth into one of Bruce’s cheeks and Bruce jolts. “I like everything that we can do together.” His thumb presses further in and he brushes a kiss against the indentations left by his teeth. “But I especially like the things that you like, my dear. Do you like this?”

“Yes. A lot.”

“Wonderful.” His tongue briefly thrusts back in alongside his thumb, he flicks it up as he pulls away and Bruce doesn’t hold back the mewling sound that builds up in his throat. “You know how much I love when we find new things for you to enjoy.”

“_Jeremiah_.”

Jeremiah laughs under his breath, sounding absolutely delighted, before he presses in once more. Bruce feels like he’s burning up from the inside, he’s so hot, and it only take a few minutes of Jeremiah's full attention for his cock to be fully hard and dripping all over again.

Both of Jeremiah’s hands fall away, and he can hear a wet squelching of lube being squeezed out of a bottle, and eventually Jeremiah pulls his mouth away so that he can replace his tongue with three of his slick fingers. 

“You open up so nicely for me, Bruce,” he praises as he trails kisses up Bruce’s spine. “You want it so badly, don’t you?”

“Yes. You know that I do.” Bruce pushes back against Jeremiah’s fingers. “You told me that you’d give me what I want, Miah. C’mon, please, I love you.”

Jeremiah pulls his fingers out and Bruce turns himself onto his back, splaying his legs wide on either side of Jeremiah’s hips. 

“I love you too, Bruce. So much, so much.” Jeremiah grabs him by the hips and yanks him closer, and Bruce’s legs fold around his waist. “I’d do anything for you, darling, I’d place the whole world at your feet if it would make you happy.”

“I know,” Bruce tells him, breath hitching as Jeremiah’s cock brushes against the slick left by his fingers. “I know, Miah. You make me so happy already.”

“Oh, _Bruce_.” The head of Jeremiah’s cock begins to press in and Bruce’s breaths become even more shallow. “Every moment I spend with you is a cherished gift. Your presence itself is euphoria. Your smile leaves me in raptures. To be connected with you as I am is an indefinable bliss.” As his tone becomes more fervent his hold on Bruce’s hips becomes tighter, bruising, pulling him up the slight incline made by his thighs. Bruce’s hands scrabble in the bedsheets beside him as his back raises off of the bed, his weight held up by his shoulders and the firm grasp his legs have on Jeremiah’s waist. “I would cease to exist without you.”

“You’ll never be without me,” Bruce promises, and his hands untwist themselves from the bedding to lay over Jeremiah’s. “Never. We’re bound together, you and I.”

And nothing could ever break that connection.

Jeremiah shudders and he leans in, peppering kisses all across Bruce’s face as he drives his hips forward until his pelvis is flush with Bruce’s ass. 

Time stretches on and the rest of the world falls out of focus; all that matters is the firm rolling of hips, the slick drag of skin, and the sparks that ignite inside of Bruce’s body in response to it. Jeremiah whispers promises into the skin of Bruce’s neck and chest—about what they can do together, what they will do together—as he continues to plant kisses across wherever his lips can reach. Their hands link and Bruce clings to Jeremiah just as tightly as Jeremiah clutches at him, and their movements start to become unsteady. Jeremiah begins to fervently grind his hips, still fully seated inside, and he brings one of their linked hands down onto Bruce’s cock. 

“Beautiful,” he praises, voice thick and cracking with emotion. “Say it again, Bruce, darling, _please_.”

Bruce complies, the words tripping over his tongue in a rush that he repeats over and over, until he can’t speak any more.

He digs his teeth into Jeremiah’s shoulder as he comes, and he can feel Jeremiah tremble as he curls around Bruce, repeating his name like a beloved prayer as he comes undone.

Bruce is too hot, and his muscles are shaking, and he lets go of one of Jeremiah’s hands to guide him into a kiss as they shift onto their sides. Jeremiah murmurs something inaudible, but no doubt romantic and saccharine against his lips, and when he pulls back he looks at Bruce like he is the only reason why the world is still turning.

Bruce runs a hand up and down his side, fingernails idly scratching far too light to leave a mark, but Jeremiah quivers from it all the same.

“Bruce,” Jeremiah sighs, brushing their foreheads together so that he is the only thing that Bruce can perceive. “I love you so much. I’ll help you carve the heart right out of that woman’s chest if that’s what you want,” he promises eagerly, a zealous glint in his eye that makes Bruce’s recovering heart start to race once more. “However you want her to die, that’s what we’ll do. Her and her pet monster. Do you want them to burn alive for what they did to Gotham, to Haven?” He reaches out for Bruce’s hand and twines their fingers together again. “Or do you want it to have more a personal touch?”

“It should be personal.” He wants to be sure that the vengeance is carried out properly. “It wouldn’t be right, otherwise.”

“What shall we do to them, Bruce—my darling, my other half, my soulmate—and with what? Knives, guns, our bare hands?”

“Actually.” Bruce presses closer, forcing Jeremiah onto his back as he settles partially over top of him, the beginnings of a deceitfully sweet smile on his lips. “I was thinking we could blow them up.”

Jeremiah goes still, and his breath hitches.

“Jeremiah.” Bruce sits up, straddling Jeremiah’s hips, one hand braced upon the abnormally faded scar left behind by too many stabs to count. “Will you build a bomb with me?”

“Oh, Bruce.” Jeremiah’s hands settle on his hips, and he looks up at Bruce just like he did when Bruce was backlit by the fire of Wayne Manor. Absolutely smitten. Lovesick. “Do you even need to ask?”

“You know how I like to be sure about things.”

“My answer is yes, darling boy. We’ll slip into Wayne Enterprises’ R&D to salvage all the parts that we need, and I—” His breath hitches again, and he licks his lips. “I’m going to show you everything, explain it all to you, teach you, work with you, oh, Bruce, my love.” His hands reach up to take hold of Bruce’s face and Bruce leans into his ardent, reverent touch. “They won’t stand a chance.”

Bruce feels his smile take on a vicious edge, and Jeremiah’s gaze somehow becomes even more adoring. 

“I know.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter probably never would have been finished nor seen the light of day were it not for Sheba_Al_Hurra, I hope that you enjoy it. :)
> 
> xoxo

Watching Bruce’s hands—slender fingers and soft skin and delicate joints that would deceive most into thinking that he wasn’t just as capable of destruction as he was capable of creation—measure and trim the wires in an exact replica of the way that Jeremiah had shown him to is something akin to a divine experience. 

It hadn’t been easy to find all that they would need, and it had taken a few days more than Jeremiah had wanted to collect everything—because second-rate parts simply would not do when it came to this particular labor of love—but even before their bomb was fully assembled the time that they’d put into it was worth every second. 

And it brought back such fond, sweet memories. Nostalgia was already such a heady emotion, especially when it came to Jeremiah’s memories of Bruce. He’s almost certain that he could get drunk on flashbacks of moments spent in his long-destroyed bunker and perhaps he had, back during that wretched time when he and Bruce were parted.

But he doesn’t need to rely on memories of Bruce any more to keep the fires of his vision and motivation burning. 

Because Bruce is right here with him, and Bruce will never leave him. 

They’re making a bomb together and this time Bruce _knows_ what it’s meant to do, he _wanted_ it to be something that could cause devastation, he’d _asked_ Jeremiah to build it with him. 

Bruce’s retribution will be stunning. Jeremiah hopes that they’re close enough to the blast that he can see Bruce haloed by the fire and smoke of his own making again. The mere idea of it gives him goosebumps. 

“Perfect,” he tells Bruce, a familiar warmth flowing through him when Bruce sends a small smile his way. 

Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. 

Everything that he and Bruce collaborated on was bound to be nothing short of flawless. 

“I would almost think that you’d knowingly made a bomb before,” he chortles, and Bruce goes still.

“Well, I have.”

Jeremiah freezes.

Because he knows that Bruce hadn’t been aware that the generators were meant to be bombs until the moment that Jeremiah had told him so. 

Something dark and covetous uncoils within him.

“When?” His tone is clipped. “Why?” Bruce turns a questioning gaze towards him, as if confused about Jeremiah’s abrupt change. “With _who?_”

“When I was thirteen,” Bruce answers simply. “Because I couldn’t figure out the combination to the locked door in my father’s secret passage behind the fireplace. With…” Bruce’s expression goes soft, reminiscing, and Jeremiah’s hands curl into tight fists. “With Alfred.”

Alfred.

The name is like salt to an open wound.

Jeremiah has taken so much of Bruce’s heart for himself. Bruce loves him, loves him just like Jeremiah loves Bruce, and Jeremiah’s entire heart belongs to Bruce and Bruce alone.

But Bruce’s heart wasn’t only Jeremiah’s.

There was room there, still, for Gotham as a whole. Room for a few people that Jeremiah wishes he would leave behind for good. Even if it had worked in his favor, even if that had been one of the reasons why Bruce wanted to work with him to take down Walker—al Ghul—that didn’t mean that Jeremiah detested it any less.

Not even Alfred Pennyworth could tear them apart now, Jeremiah is sure of it, but knowing that Bruce cared for anyone that _wasn’t_ him stung. 

“It wasn’t anything like this,” Bruce tells him, a distant look in his eyes as his attention shifts away from Jeremiah and turns towards the past. “It was rudimentary, but it did the job.”

“I see,” Jeremiah says, unable to keep the discontent from his tone. Bruce looks at him again, eyebrows furrowing.

“Miah, are you getting jealous about this?”

Yes.

He doesn’t answer, but clearly he doesn’t need to because Bruce’s expression shifts into something a little too amused for this grave situation.

“You’re so possessive,” Bruce tells him with his perfect voice, setting down the perfect wires with his perfect hands. “You can’t have all of my firsts, Jeremiah, we met too late in life for that.”

As if that knowledge didn’t make Jeremiah burn a little hotter every time he recalled it. What cruel forces had been at work that kept him from his other half for so long? What vile creatures had taken the prizes that Jeremiah coveted above all others?

He knows one such a creature a little too well; they’d almost killed each other, after all.

“It’s one thing to not be your first kiss.” Oh, what wouldn’t Jeremiah have done to ensure that he’d be Bruce’s first, last, and only. “But I think that most would forgive my assumptions that you had never knowingly made an explosive before.”

Bruce’s wry smile widens, and Jeremiah has to—has to—

He grabs onto Bruce’s collar and pulls him into a kiss. Bruce nearly stumbles out of his chair at the abrupt tugging, but he laughs lowly against Jeremiah’s desperate mouth—uncalled for—and settles himself astride Jeremiah’s lap.

Familiar heat blooms underneath the surface of Jeremiah’s skin. He digs his hands into luscious curls and roughly pulls, and the laughter is extinguished. Bruce rocks his hips, hesitantly at first, before grinding down against Jeremiah in a way that makes it difficult for him to catch his breath, and his lips fall open with an exquisite sigh when Jeremiah runs his tongue along them.

He wants Bruce to forget about anything that isn’t _him_, that isn’t _them_.

He’ll make him forget.

He will be the only thing that Bruce can see, taste, touch, smell, hear—the only thing that Bruce can focus his attention on. He’ll make everything else fade away for as long as possible and revel at being the centre of Bruce’s universe. 

A hand drops from Bruce’s hair to take hold of one of the knives that Jeremiah always has concealed somewhere on his person. He slips the edge of it against the collar of Bruce’s sweater and drags down. The fabric splits with a soft, pleasant sort of hiss. 

Bruce’s breath catches.

When the cloth parts, sliding down his shoulders in the effortless allure that only Bruce was so capable of, Jeremiah can see that he’d nicked some skin in his haste. A shallow red line, no more than a few inches long, slowly beads up with blood. Jeremiah doesn’t resist the urge to lave his tongue over it.

Bruce jerks, his legs tensing on either side of Jeremiah’s thighs. Jeremiah gazes up at his face, pleased to see colour high on Bruce’s cheeks. He lays the hand with the knife possessively on the small of Bruce’s back, and his other drifts up to skim over his chest.

“Do you like that, Bruce?” He drags his tongue over the split skin again, and Bruce’s entire body quivers. “You do, don’t you.” His rolls a nipple between his fingers, and Bruce bites his lip to stifle a moan. “You know better than that, Bruce. Don’t hold back on me, darling, let me hear you.” He pinches the flesh between his fingers, and his nails dig into Bruce’s back, and he presses a kiss to the cut that his knife had left. 

“Jeremiah,” Bruce sighs ever-so sweetly. Jeremiah could hear him say his name like that forever and never get sick of it. “Touch me more.”

“With what, darling? My hands, my mouth, my knife?”

“With everything.”

Jeremiah feels overwhelmed by sheer adoration. He leans forward to lay his head on Bruce’s shoulder and he taps the flat of the blade against Bruce’s back. He can feel Bruce shudder at the sensation, and it makes his blood run hot.

“Tell me what I want to hear,” he requests, lips brushing tenderly against Bruce’s warm skin. Bruce isn’t shy about telling him, not at all, but Jeremiah always longs to hear it, _yearns_ to hear it. The simple phrase that made life even more worth living, that made bombs even more worth building, that made people who’d intentionally hurt Bruce out of cruelty even more worth destroying until there was nothing left of them but dust and bad memories.

Bruce brings a hand up to cradle to back of his head.

“I love you, Jeremiah.”

“More than anyone else?”

Bruce’s hand tightens in his hair and he pulls Jeremiah away from his shoulder so that he can look him in the eye.

“More than anyone else,” he promises, and then he guides Jeremiah’s head back down to his chest.

“My shameless darling,” Jeremiah murmurs under his breath. “I love you so much. We are a perfect match, aren’t we?”

“Of course we are.” Bruce runs a hand through his hair, fingernails grazing against Jeremiah’s scalp. His breath hitches as Jeremiah wraps his lips around one of his nipples and sucks until it’s a firm peak, and then he bites hard enough that Bruce whines and squirms.

He whispers words of adoration and praise against Bruce’s skin as he trails kisses down his sternum. He promises him the world and everything worthwhile in it, because it’s no less than Bruce deserves. He drags the flat of his knife down Bruce’s stomach, watching the muscle underneath tense as Bruce tries to keep still, and Jeremiah is hit by an urge to etch his name into Bruce’s skin. The idea of it makes his blood turn molten in his veins and his eyes burn fever-bright.

His name imprinted on Bruce’s soft flesh like a brand. A pattern of raised lines that Jeremiah would trace with his fingers every day, pleased and possessive and just as devastatingly, devotedly in love as ever. 

He wonders if Bruce would give him a matching mark. 

There’s something bewitchingly amorous about the very idea of it; to possess and to be possessed so blatantly. Jeremiah feels thoroughly lovesick at the thought of Bruce’s signature permanently marking him. 

He drags Bruce into another kiss, rough and biting, his teeth scraping against Bruce’s lips hard enough to bring blood to the surface, and when he drags his tongue against them Bruce opens with a sigh, slowly but firmly shifting his hips and working Jeremiah up even more.

He loves, he loves, he loves—

Bruce untucks Jeremiah’s shirt, his warm fingertips briefly skimming against the skin of his abdomen and making sparks of something golden and electric run up and down Jeremiah’s spine. 

He wants, he wants, he wants—

Bruce makes quick work of the buttons; his hands are graceful and irresistible and utterly unparalleled, and one of them comes to rest overtop of Jeremiah’s thundering heart.

Bruce, Bruce—

“Bruce,” he hisses from between his teeth as Bruce’s back curves so that he can tuck his face into the crook of Jeremiah’s neck. He licks and nips and kisses the flesh there in between exhaling hot, shaky breaths. The firm grinding is becoming faster, now, as if he can’t help himself.

And he can’t, can he? Because he needs Jeremiah as much as Jeremiah needs him.

And when it comes to Bruce Jeremiah absolutely cannot help himself, ever. He instigates and he indulges and he _savors_ and he conspires to have more, more, more, until Bruce has freely given him everything. And then he’ll take it all again. And again.

Endlessly.

_Eternally_.

“Can you come from just this, darling,” he croons in Bruce’s ear, voice deep and honeyed with the weight of his adoration, “without even having to feel my hand or mouth around your cock? Can you come from just squirming in my lap?”

“Miah,” Bruce shudders, and the nails of the hand over Jeremiah’s heart begin to dig in slightly causing delightful pin-pricks of pleasure-pain, “I might if you keep talking like that.”

“Is that a promise?” Jeremiah sounds breathless to his own ears, but who could blame him, really, for being unable to breathe at a time like this?

“Maybe.” Bruce’s teeth teasingly skim against the column of his throat. Jeremiah bares his neck to him, wishing for a new bite-mark or bruise that he can later press his fingers against to bask in both the lingering soreness and the feeling of being claimed by the most important person to ever walk the earth. “Or maybe it’s a challenge.” 

Charmed laughter builds up in Jeremiah’s chest and releases into the charged air between them.

“If it’s a challenge then what do I get when I win?”

Bruce pulls away from his neck to press their foreheads together. His eyes are so wide and dark and beautiful that Jeremiah could get lost in them.

“Other than the pleasure of knowing how much I love you, and how much I want you?” His tone holds a trace of humour, but there’s a glint of something feverish in Bruce’s gaze and Jeremiah wants nothing more than to _worship_ him, in that moment. “I’ll give you a kiss.”

Such a simple thing. Such a precious, perfect, wondrous thing. What more could a man possibly ask for from the one who completes him?

“Tell me how much you love me, Miah,” Bruce requests. His hands dig firmly into Jeremiah’s hair, and his eyes are unwavering in their delicious intensity. “Tell me how much you want me.”

And Jeremiah—who would do all manner of reckless, arduous, unimaginable things if Bruce asked it of him—does so with ease.

His voice is soft and low, the ever-flowing current of his fidelity apparent in every sentence, every phrase, every word that slips past his lips, though it always crests to an incontestable wave with each utterance of Bruce’s name. Bruce feels so good moving against him, even through the layers of fabric that keep them separated. So warm and agile and unrelenting. Jeremiah speaks until he’s not even sure what he’s saying, because he becomes far too focused on Bruce’s hitching breaths, on the flush that overtakes his face until it stains even the tips of his ears, on the way his once-graceful movements become stuttering and desperate.

On the way his eyelashes flutter.

On the way he moans Jeremiah’s name.

“If I could live without my heart I’d carve it out of my chest and lay it in your hands for safekeeping, Bruce,” he slurs, high on the romance of his own suggestion, his hands gripping Bruce’s hips tight enough that he hopes he’s leaving bruises. He braces his feet against the floor and thrusts upward, reveling in both the sensation and the sound that Bruce makes in response to the movement. He does it again, and again. The closer Bruce gets to the brink the closer Jeremiah becomes, too, which is no surprise considering how tightly linked they are. “It’s all for you, all for you, all for you my darling. I love you with every breath, with every heartbeat, with everything that I am.”

Bruce’s thighs clench on either side of Jeremiah’s hips and he starts curling in on himself, his mouth falls open with another cry of Jeremiah’s name.

He’s almost there.

“So beautiful,” Jeremiah tells him, hushed and reverent, “so beautiful and mine. Tell me that you’re mine, Bruce.”

“I love you Jeremiah.” Bruce shudders, hands pulling Jeremiah’s hair hard enough to sting. “I’m yours, I’m yours.”

“And I’m yours,” Jeremiah swears, pleasure and heat and happiness steadily building up. He lowers his face to Bruce’s chest and grazes his teeth against the cut, looking up at Bruce from under his eyelashes with nothing but the truest love in his gaze. “Yours.”

Until every star in the sky goes dark and the universe collapses in on itself. 

Feeling, hearing, _watching_ Bruce fall to pieces on top of him—the sensation of his entire body trembling against Jeremiah’s own, the soft utterance of Jeremiah’s name that falls from his swollen lips, the way his eyes clench shut as the flush on his face darkens—is simply too much. Bruce reaches climax and Jeremiah can do nothing but follow along mere seconds later, his hands clenching Bruce tightly against him and his mouth helplessly scattering open-mouthed kisses across every expanse of skin that’s within reach. 

Bruce’s frantic movements slow to an unsteady stop. His grip on Jeremiah’s hair goes lax and he pants shuddering, hitching breaths as his eyes flicker half-open.

He is more gorgeous than ever before.

Jeremiah, satisfied but ever-eager to indulge in more, seals his lips around a nipple and sucks until Bruce’s eyes shift from pleasure-dazed to alert. 

“Insatiable,” Bruce huffs fondly. He curls his fingers back into Jeremiah’s hair to tug him away, and then presses his hand against Jeremiah’s hot cheek. “What am I to do with you?”

Jeremiah leans into his palm, unable to hold back a pleased laugh. 

“I distinctly remember being promised a kiss, I believe that would be a suitable starting point.”

“Yes,” Bruce agrees, and his hand trails down Jeremiah’s neck to rest gently on his shoulder. He leans in to press his closed, smiling mouth against Jeremiah’s. It’s soft, sweet, loving.

Jeremiah loves, and is loved.

And there is nothing in the universe capable of severing that sacred connection.


End file.
